-Eternal Night Graveyard-

  "Haaaaa ya!" Pouncing forward, Mari impales a fanged monster with red eyes in the chest with the sharpened zombie arm bone. The vampiric monster let out a scream before disintegrating into dust. "Tch!" She clicked her tongue at the sight of the pile of dust. "Stupid pointy weapon, why can't you make a satisfying crunch sound?" She dug through the pile of dust using the sharpened bone for the monster's core. "Stupid vampire monster, can't even die satisfyingly." She continued to grumble as she pocketed the core. "I can never understand why Alex loves fighting you so much. At least zombies exploded in a shower of gore if hit hard enough, while all you do is pathetically disintegrate into nothing." Whipping the dust off her hands, Mari continued exploring the mansion.

  It's been a few hours since Mari fought her way through the horde of various undead to reach the mansion's entrance. Since then, she's been constantly wandering around, hoping to encounter any of her friends. "Ugh! At this rate, I'll be lucky to see another student before the test is over! Where is everyone!" She screams up towards the ceiling, attracting more monsters to her location. After quickly dispatching with the horde, she continued her slow trek through the mansion.

  "I think it's safe to say that none of the others are here, or I would have met them by now," Mari grumbled to herself while smashing a zombie's head against a wall, splattering its brain matter all over her. "Fine, I can accept that. You win some, you lose some, and I know that I can't expect to get the same Rifts as the others every time. BUT! " Mari ripped the lower jaw off a vampiric monster and buried its fangs in another monster's eyes. "WHAT!" She ripped a zombie's arm off and used it to beat the monster to a pulp. With each word she shouted, Mari would attract more monsters to her before she promptly killed them, leaving a trail of gore behind her. "I CAN'T ACCEPT THE TOTAL LACK OF ANY OTHER PERSON!" Getting that out of her system, Mari looked behind her at all the monster corpses before turning right around again and continuing forward. "Eh, I bet monsters that died that easily aren't worth much anyway."

  After she finally took the moment to calm herself, Mari started thinking of the reason why she couldn't find anyone in the mansion. "I know I'm not the only student in this Rift, I definitely say some back in that graveyard." She thought back to the few students she had encountered in the Rift, with the main ones that came to mind being the two guys who ran away after intruding on her meal. "Hmm, if those two are anything to go by. Maybe I haven't encountered anyone else here because they're all too weak to get past the main horde outside?" She nodded to herself as if she had figured out the answer to a particularly annoying puzzle. "Well, if that's the case, I guess I can't blame them for staying away. This is a test and all." Then, right as Mari was about to give up on the idea of ever seeing another person in the mansion, a thought popped into her mind. "Or maybe all the strong people are fighting Bosses that spawn in the graveyard and just didn't have the opportunity to get here yet!" Her frown grew into a savage grin as her eyes lit up at the idea.

  "In that case, I'd better hunt down some Bosses here before they have the chance to get to the mansion! That way, we can compare who fought the stronger Boss and who got the better loot!" With that plan in mind, Mari charged forward deeper into the mansion, killing any monster that would get in her way.

  -Living Islands-

  "SHIT! THE SWARM IS COMING TO THIS ISLAND!" Screamed a random student as they, along with every other student around them, started scattering. Without any hesitation, Jack unsheathed his sword and started hacking away at a tree. As he hacked away, Jack let his mind reminisce about his experience in the Rift so far, and what a shitty time it was. First, the island he initially landed on had no essential resources. Then, after an hour of swimming, he somehow arrived at an island that was entirely deserted.

  'Well, I guess it wasn't all bad.' He did manage to restock on some essentials on the desert island, and he even met some cool guys. 'Though I did almost drown afterwards, so I guess overall that island can be considered a net negative experience.' Jack's time in the Rift hasn't improved much since then. He would find himself on an island, exploring for resources or loot, then, after overcoming an unpleasant or dangerous event, he would leave for a new one, and the cycle would repeat itself. If Jack were lucky, he would harvest something valuable from the island before leaving. For example, the chunk of icy ore he has stored in his Storage pouch that he remembered Crystal saying was valuable. 'Hmm, if I have to say one definitely good thing that has happened so far, it would be."

  "What the hell are you doing, Jack?!" Raven asked his friend.

  "This." Jack chuckled with a small grin. It was during his exploration on his fourth island, which, now that after giving it some thought, might have actually been the first island again, that Jack bumped into his close friend and roommate, Raven, mining away at some ore. After giving his friend a greeting hug, which Raven reluctantly returned, the duo slaved away at collecting any precious ore they could find while exchanging stories about their time in the Rift so far. Jack was happy and maybe a bit bitter to hear that Raven's time in the Rift had been so smooth compared to his. In contrast, Raven could only give Jack a reassuring pat on the shoulder after hearing what he had to go through.

  After the duo collected what they could, they built a raft using some washed-up logs on the island's shore that they tied together with some rope they brought into the Rift. They briefly landed on the desert island to stock up on some water before sailing in the opposite direction to Jack's first island. It didn't take long for the duo to crash their raft onto a lush, tropical island filled with a variety of edible fruits and vegetables. Seeing this island as a great place to set up a shelter for the night, the duo ventured deeper into the island to look for a suitable location. However, it became clear they weren't the only people with this idea, as they quickly came across several other groups of students scattered around a large flowing river. On the bright side, none of the students had any issue with the duo taking shelter near the river as well.

  When Jack finally thought the two of them could finally relax, this just had to happen, right as the duo finished building their makeshift shelter. "We don't have time to build a raft!" Raven shouted so Jack could hear him over the other students screaming. "From how fast they are approaching, we have at most an hour and a half before the swarm lands on the island!" This isn't the first time the duo had encountered the swarm. Raven was almost swept up by it, but managed to escape after killing some of the insectoid monsters latching onto him. Jack was swimming towards an island when he saw the large black cloud slowly approaching the island as well. Wisely figuring that the cloud wasn't a threat he could handle alone, Jack made a sharp ninety-degree turn and swam towards a different island.

  "You're right that we don't have time!" Jack shouted back while continuing to hack away at the tree. "But the problem is, I overheard some of the other party's scout saying that the damn giant water elemental in the ocean is drifting towards this island!" Pulling his sword out of the tree, Jack gave it a powerful kick, knocking the tree down. Lifting the bottom portion of the tree, he placed it over his shoulder and started dragging it towards the opposite shore, where the swarm is estimated to arrive.

  "Really?!" Jack nodded. "Fuck!" With that new information in mind, Raven took a position at the upper part of the tree and started helping his friend carry it to the shore. "How sure are you that the large water elemental is heading towards this island?"

  "I personally can't say for sure. But from the looks of the scouts' party members, it's clear they trusted his judgment. So I'm leaning towards trusting that the scout was telling the truth about what he saw, and do you really want to risk it?" Raven shook his head with a grim expression on his face.

  "No, I've seen how hard it is to escape from that monster's grasp." The duo sped up their pace while making sure to avoid any monsters they could see ahead of them. "Fuck," Raven swore under his breath after briefly closing his eyes and doing some quick mental calculation. "Jack, I don't think we'll have time to build a raft, or at least one sturdy enough to survive a few hits from the water elemental."

  "You sure? Because I'm kinda banking that we can."

  "We would at least need two more trees, roughly the same size as this one." Raven patted the wood on his shoulder. "Then we would need to cut each tree into four logs of roughly the same size. Then we would need to quickly dry some of the rope we managed to salvage from our last raft, because we'll need the extra rope to reinforce the new raft so it could withstand the water elements' attacks."

  "Don't we both still have some unused roles we packed for this test? Shouldn't that be enough to build our raft? Why would we need to reinforce the raft with extra rope?"

  "Do you really want to test to see if the same kind of raft that fell apart upon landing on the island wouldn't immediately break after getting it once by the elemental?"

  "Ugh, you have a point." Breaking through the jungle and onto the shore, Jack glanced around at the other students huddled together in their groups, discussing what they planned to do. "For now, let's set this down and help me cut down more trees." Dropping the tree onto the sand, the duo quickly went to work cutting down the other two trees they would need. Once they were down, they set them next to the original tree, and Jack took another glance at how the other students were doing. He quickly noticed that some groups were soaked to the bone while arguing with each other. "Fuck," Jack muttered out loud before turning toward Raven, who started working on turning the tree trunks into logs. "Looks like the large water element arrived near the island." Raven looked up from his work to look Jack in the eyes before glancing around. The large grimace on his face told Jack exactly what he was thinking.

  "We might have to risk it and hope our raft holds," Raven suggested out loud as she sped up his work. Jack's mind raced at a mile a minute as he took in every detail in his surroundings while he thought of some solutions to their problem. "Jack, start prepping the rope. The two of us should be able to finish the raft in time."

  "Maybe," Jack finally spoke. "We can get this done sooner if we recruit more people?" Jack suggested while eyeing the three groups of students at the shore.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Raven answered without looking up from his work. "Even if the others agree to help, do you think they would work for free?" Jack shook his head.

  "No, not for free. They would have to help if they don't want to fail the test this soon."

  "What? What are you planning, Jack?" Ignoring Raven's question, Jack walked deeper into the shore until he was between the three other teams. Remembering what Sera had taught him, Jack took two potions from his Storage pouch, opened them up and quickly mixed them before tossing some of the mixture in front of him, creating a small explosion on the sand.

  "What the hell are you doing!" One of the other students shouted at Jack. "You're going to attract the swarm towards our location!"

  "That's the plan," Jack lifted the rest of the mixture and swirled it in front of himself while showing it to the other. "I can throw the rest of this and cause a way larger explosion as well."

  "You fucker!/ Are you crazy!/ Why you!/ Why would you do that?!/ This fucker!/ Ahhhhh!! / We're dead! / -Loud sobbing- / Did Jermy send you!/ Ah! I can't afford to fail this test!" The various other students shouted. Raven stopped his work and looked up to glance around at the shouting students before turning to Alex, who was patiently waiting for them to quiet down. Raven wasn't sure what Jack was planning, but he decided to put his trust in his friend. Taking a deep breath, Raven visualized the spell he wanted to use before guiding his Mana to flow towards his throat.

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  "Shut up!" Yelled Raven, his voice sending out a wave of Mana that forcefully silenced the other students it touched.

  " ....!?/ ....! /...?! " A few of the students tried to say, but realized that no sound was leaving their mouths. Seeing that he won't be interrupted, Jack nodded a thanks to Raven before turning to address the other students.

  "As you all know, the swarm will land on this island in just a few hours and most likely will head towards our location due to the bright explosion that happened earlier." Jack ignored the glares being directed towards him and continued talking. " So you don't want to get overwhelmed and fail the test this quickly, I suggest we all work together to build a raft so we can all get off the island before it's too late."

  "Why should we work with you?" Asked a male student sporting a buzz cut once the spell that was preventing him from speaking ended. "Isn't it your fault if the damn swarm targets this area first?"

  "Answer me honestly, do you really think you and your party were getting off this island by yourself? Especially with the large water elemental prowling the nearby water?" He answered. "And before you said you would be able to make it past the water elemental," Jack interrupted, before the student could say anything. "I've seen your past attempts, and the fact you're soaking wet on this island tells me how well those went."

  "We would have made it past them eventually." Grumbled one of the buzz cut student's party members.

  "Oh, I'm confident you would eventually get past the water elemental, but would you be able to do it before the swarm arrives?" Their silence told Jack everything he needed to know. "So, now that it's clear that none of us are making it past the clearly powerful Boss in the water, how about we all work together and build a large raft to get off this island?"

  "Why should we follow your orders?! Who made you the leader?!" A student from another party yelled.

  "No one," Jack calmly answered. "And I'm not asking any of you to do so. All I'm asking is that we all pitch in and work together, getting off this island before the massive cloud of blood thirsty insectoid monsters comes to attempt to eat us all alive. So, unless any of you are confident in fending off a seemingly endless swarm of monsters, we all don't have much of an option but to work together. So what do you all say? Temporarily truce?" The other students looked at their party members before glancing at the other teams.

  "Fine. /I guess. /Not like we have a choice. /-Angry and annoyed shrugging- /If I have to. /Not, like you're giving me much of a choice. /What other options do we realistically have at this point?/ Sure. /-Sniffle- ok./ Fuck you and you can count me in!"

  "Wait, what about the elemental in the ocean? Even if we get off this island, how are we supposed to get past them?"

  "I have a plan for that, but we don't have much time, so I'll explain it once we gather the materials to start building our raft. So what do you all say? You in?" Jack saw everyone nod. "Great! Now, let's get this show on the road! Raven, are you ready?"Jack asked his friend as he turned back towards him, while the other students dispersed to gather more logs for the larger raft they would need. At this point, Raven had already finished turning the three trees into suitable logs they could use for their raft.

  "I've been working this whole time, Jack." He snarked at his friend with a grin. "If anything, I should be asking you that. So, how about it? Are you ready to finally help me build this damn thing? Or do I once again have to do all the work?"

  "Hey! I also make sure to do my share of the work!" Jack replied with a large grin plastered on his face as she unsheathed his sword, ready to cut down more nearby trees. "And I'm always ready!"

  "Well, let's hope that's the case because by my estimation, we have just under three and a half hours to get this done."

  -Breathing Mountain-

  "Any sightings of the rainbow serpent yet?" Elizabeth asked Elison as she harvested the corpse of a monster that resembled a winged snake.

  "Negative!" She replied with a salute. "The scouting party found traces of iridescent wings near sector two and some rainbow scales at sector three, but so far, there are no sightings of the potential Boss."

  "How about the mother slime?" Elison shook her head.

  "Some of the teams tasked with gathering food in the forest area had encountered a few slimes. But they were mostly species that you expect in the forest. So they couldn't be sure if the slimes were some of the slime mother's children or just naturally occurring ones."

  "I see." Elizabeth nodded along to the report. "Then, how about the scouting teams sent to the frozen area of the mountain? Have they returned yet?"

  "Not yet, but they just recently contacted their relay team, telling them that everything is going as planned and to expect them back by the end of the day." Nodding along, Elizabeth cleaned her carving knife with a cloth before putting it along with her loot in a Storage pouch.

  "Tell the teams in the forest to immediately fall back if they encounter the mother slime. Slime Bosses are difficult without any strong AOE, especially ones that spawn more slimes, like how I estimate the slime mother can. None of the teams there has the firepower not to get overrun by slimes, so tell them to retreat upon sighting the Boss so that we can regroup with the proper setup." Elizabeth commanded as she made her way back to the cavern base.

  "Roger, roger!" Elison saluted before running up to catch up to Elizbeth.

  "Tell the scout teams hunting down the rainbow serpent to continue their search for the Boss. However, like the teams in the forest, tell them to retreat upon any sightings of it."

  "Aren't the people searching for the rainbow serpent quite strong? Is there really a need to have them retreat instead of engaging the Boss in a fight?" Elizabeth nodded.

  "Yes, a few of them are quite strong, and I'm confident that if push comes to shove, they'll be able to take the rainbow serpent down. But that isn't an excuse to be reckless. We have very little information on the Boss, except for a few eyewitness descriptions of its appearance. Meaning we don't know the Boss's strengths, weaknesses, types of attacks, and hell, we can't even be sure what type of monster the Boss is."

  "Really?" Elison couldn't help but ask in shock. "I would have thought from what little we know so far, it would be a winged serpent variant of a monster of some kind. Like those you can find around this layer of the mountain."

  "Yes, you would be right, but remember what they taught us in class. Never go into a fight, especially one against a Boss monster, relying on assumptions. I could spend hours making a list of everything that could go wrong by doing so, and that wouldn't even list a small percentage of the possible scenarios that might occur." Elison nodded along.

  "Yeah, I think I remember my teacher telling us something similar to that in class. I think they also said something about how important information gathering is in a Rift, especially in one you're not familiar with."

  "It's important for a good reason. A single mistake like assuming a Boss is a kind of monster, let's say a winged serpent variant, when it's actually a mimic variant instead, could lead a whole hunting party to their deaths." Elison blinked in confusion at Elizabeth's example.

  "Is that a possibility in our situation?" Elizabeth shrugged.

  "Can't say for certain one way or another. I'm not particularly familiar with this Rift, and even if I got a good gist of it from my exploration so far. I can't say for certain that I have the full picture because I know for a fact that I don't. It's equally likely that the Boss we are hunting is a winged serpent variant or a mimic variant that can take the form of the monsters in the area. The only thing we can do is search for the Boss monster, study it so we can figure out what kind of monster it is, before coming up with a plan on how we can take it down." Reaching a cave entrance, the duo started making their way back to the main cavern base while taking the shortcuts that some of the other students had created and maintained.

  Along the way, in one of the shortcuts, the duo encountered another student busy digging out the reformed areas of the man-made tunnel. One quirk that all Rifts share is their tendency to revert any changes made by those they deem as invaders. This results in several things occurring in the Rift, including monsters respawning, damaged structures mending themselves, the accelerated growth of harvested flora and the rapid repopulation of normal animals. Depending on the situation, this quirk can be a curse or a boon to those entering a Rift. For example, people entering an unstable Rift will be constantly swarmed by a literal endless supply of monsters until they can either find the exit or kill the Boss. While groups that have managed to contain a stable Rift can continuously harvest resources from it.

  However, like many things about the Rifts, this quirk isn't so simple. For one, there is no guarantee that the type of monsters that respawn will be the same ones that you originally killed, which means that it's next to impossible to reliably farm rare monsters for their parts due to their low spawning rate. A similar phenomenon also occurs when the terrain regenerates. When you mine out an ore vein in a Rift, it is more likely for the area to regenerate as plain stone than it is to reform the ore vein once more. The only consistency you can rely on is that the Rift will only reform in a way that matches its original form. Take the Rift Elizabeth is in right now. The only monsters that will respawn in the forest layer would be Fey, slime and plant variants of monsters. The top layer will only ever spawn water-based elementals, ice golems, and other cold-based inorganic monsters. And so on for each of the different layers, the only time you will find a monster that doesn't match this pattern is if it wandered from one layer to another.

  "Hello Annabell." Elizabeth greeted the student, who was distracted by her Mana weaving, to notice the duo.

  "Ah!" Screamed Annabell, startled by Elizabeth's sudden call. "Oh, hey, Elizabeth. Hey Elison." Annabell greeted after calming herself down. "Did the others manage to locate a Boss monster yet? Are you recalling my team back to the base so we can join in the fight?" Elizabeth shook her head.

  "Not yet, but I'm sure one of the scouting teams would be able to locate a Boss monster relatively soon. Though, depending on the amount of information they managed to get on the Boss, we might have to delay the actual fight until the day after. Enough about that for now, how about you? Where is the rest of your team?"

  "Oh, they are further down in the tunnel. There was a sudden swarm of worm-like monsters, and they had to hunt them down before we could start fixing the tunnel down there. We managed to clear out this area, so I was tasked with fixing this portion of the tunnel while the others hunt down the rest of the swarm." Elizabeth nodded.

  "We have some time before we are scheduled to return to the cavern base. So how about Elison and me watch your back for any monster your team might have missed while you do your work?" Annabel beamed.

  "I'll be honoured!" Letting out a soft, tired sigh, Elizabeth prepared her revolver, making sure to keep an eye out for any potential dangers as she watched Anabell do her work. Quickly weaving a large tapestry, Annabell wrapped the finished spell around her hand, pulling it tight before directing her Mana to flow through the weave. "Liquid Earth." She mummured before weaving another spell and tying it to the one wrapped around her hand. "Spectal Hand." She pumped more Mana into the threads to reinforce the connection of the two spells before weaving a third into the tapestry. "Boost." She announced while swiping her wrapped, open palm in front of herself, towards the jagged tunnel walls. As Annabel moved her hands, the tunnel walls would flow and move in the same direction as a large transparent hand moved through the rock. As if she were working with clay, Annabell moulded the hard rock of the tunnel walls, smoothing it out and compacting the stone so it wouldn't collapse into itself. "Phew," Annabel let out a relieved sigh as she cut the flow of her Mana towards the Mana threads wrapped around her hand, dismissing the spell. "That should do it for this portion of the tunnel." She said with a wide, proud smile towards Elizabeth and Elison.

  "Bravo!" Clapped Elison.

  "Good job," Elizabeth congratulated with a slight nod and smile.

  "Oh, it's nothing, really." She bashfully replied, her face heating up at the duo's praise.

  "You kidding? That was awesome!" Elison cheered.

  "I agree, you shouldn't sell yourself short. That was an impressive showing of your spell-casting abilities." Elizabeth continued praising Annabell with a soft smile.

  "H-how about we head up and meet with the others?" She quickly suggested, trying to change the topic of conversation. "If they're not done dealing with the monster swarm by now, that means they might need our help fending them off. If not, then I can help the others fix up the area as well."

  "Sounds like a solid plan." Not wanting to embarrass the flustered student further, Elizabeth easily agreed to her suggestion, causing Annabell to let out a relieved sigh under her breath. "Then, shall we get going?" While the trio made their way up the tunnel, Elizabeth took out a Mana potion from her Stroauch pouch and handed it over to Annabell, who happily accepted and downed it in a few gulps. The three students made sure to stay vigilant as they walked through the man-made tunnel, while engaging in some small talk to pass the time.

  It didn't take the trio long before they started hearing the sounds of fighting off in the distance. They immediately sprang into action, dashing forward to get to the fight as fast as they could. Upon seeing the rest of Annabell's team in the midst of fighting off a swarm of ant-like monsters, Elizabeth, without any hesitation, fired off six shots from her revolver before quickly reloading. One bullet pierced through the eyes of an ant that was about to bite one of the male students, killing it before it could attack. Two tore off the front legs of a charging ant, causing it to crash into three of its nearby sisters. The last three flew through the legs of several ants each, clearing a path for Elison to charge forward while Annabell quickly began weaving a spell.

  With their newly gained reinforcements, the rest of Annabell's team pivoted from a defensive formation to one of all-out attack. Beholden to be finally free from the painful stalemate that was slowly grinding away at their resources, the other students in Annabell's team started using what little they had left to help wipe out the monsters around them. It was only thirty minutes later that they would be finally able to rest from the constant fight they had to endure.

  REALMS GM handbook

  Rift generation and restoration.